Continuity of the cone functor. (Q1403823)

This paper addresses the question of the continuity of a certain class of endofunctors \(\Phi\): \(\text{Top}\to \text{Top}\) (among them the cone and suspension functors) on the category Top of topological spaces. Here continuity is understood in the sense of ``enriched'' category theory (Top is enriched in Top via the compact open topology on the morphism sets) rather than in the sense of preserving categorical limits. The general type of \(\Phi\) considered is of the form in which \(\Phi(X)\) is the pushout of the diagram \(X\times T\leftarrow X\times T_0\to T_0\), where \(T_0\) is a closed subspace of a Hausdorff space \(T\) \((T_0= \{0\}\subset [0,1]= T\) defines the cone functor). It is shown, among other things, that \(\Phi\) is continuous on the category of paracompact Hausdorff spaces and a counterexample to continuity is given for the category of regular spaces. A key observation is that the continuity of \(\Phi\) is closely related to the question of whether or not the canonical projection \(X\times I\to \Phi(X)\) is semiproper.